India report

[undyingking]

OK, back and now mostly over nasty cold and work catch-up that ensued. I had a terrific time -- my last two visits to my family there were after gaps of 18 and 12 years respectively, so it was a great relief this time to have just a 9-month gap and hence no new / dead / much taller relatives to catch me out. (Actually, that's not quite true: one "niece" [ie. first cousin once removed] certainly seemed quite a bit taller, although as she's only 7 and rather shy it may have just been that she cowered a bit less this time.)

(Whether T enjoyed it or not you'll have to ask her, but she smiled in the right sort of places and is still talking to me, so hopefully that's all good.)

This visit was combined with saying goodbye to my little sister and family -- they went on from India to be with Brisbane in-laws over Christmas, then they're off for two years in Tanzania where she's being an unpaid doctor at an AIDS clinic. Last time she left the UK, inside a year she'd met and married her current husband, but I guess anything quite so dramatic is less likely this time. Hopefully we'll be able to go out there and see her before too long -- although it's not like we live in each other's pockets all the time, it really is a bit of a wrench hugging goodbye someone you're that close to, with no real idea of when you'll be together next. *whimper*

The last few days we spent in Bombay, mostly shopping -- this was to wind down from the rigours of my family. We came back with two more cases than we set out with, to which my contribution was two short-sleeved cotton shirts and a pound of coffee beans. T on the other hand now needs a new wardrobe.

I might have said already that the whole thing was for my dad's 80th birthday (although that isn't really for a few weeks yet). There was a party for him at one of my uncles' last Saturday, at which he was laden down with presents and adulation much to his taste. Even the relatives "we don't talk to any more" were invited, although fortunately they didn't turn up. We had enlarged, cleaned and framed up for him two group photots I'd secretly "borrowed" from his house -- one of him and his brothers and sisters as children in 1936, the other showing the same group 37 years on together with associated kids and spouses. Slightly disturbing to note that there definitely seems to be a bit of a family face on the male side -- but at least it's a gloriously handsome and distinguished one... Also lots of type II diabetes and heart trouble, although those may be as much to do with the vast amounts of booze they all guzzle as anything hereditary.

Anyway, that's all a bit parochial, but my dazzling insights and musings about India are a bit formless still, so will have to wait. Now to try and get ready for Christmas I suppose!

Comments

Bombay

[cloudhigh.livejournal.com]

Interested to hear you were in Bombay! So long since I was there (1992 I think), but have some fond memories of wonderful people and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Chembur where I made friends with the students and visited my friend Farah Diba. My club allowed me to enter the Cricket Club of India - so terribly British! Pip, pip. Far too hot for me then, though. Hope it wasn't for you?

Re: Bombay

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Not at this time of year, although it was very hot when I was there at the end of March just now. Did catch part of a game at the CCI stadium, a rather tired old thing since they stopped using it for Tests!